On the (B)log

January 01, 2015

Serious Cush for Your Tush. The Toto Washlet s350e.

Here at Flushd, we are about all things that can make your bathroom experience better. Whether it is showing you to the closest point of clean and safe relief or highlighting bathroom best practice, we put the world of bathrooms at your fingertips.

Today we bring you cush for your tush. A spa for your nether regions. A device that turns an average potty into a throne you can own: The Toto Washlet se350.

We in the US look at the bathroom all wrong. We want to get in, get out and get on…with our day. But to those of us who cherish a daily, or sometimes multiple times per day, respite, the bathroom is a place to relieve, not only your bowels, but some of the daily pressures of work. I mean, where else can we be alone with no one bothering us, lock the door and focus inward?

The Japanese feel the same way and Toto is the leader in toilet tech. They are taking the loo to new levels of comfort, class and clean with smart design and features you didn’t even know you needed, (we certainly didn’t) until you experience them for the first time. We assumed that these luxury toilets were like the ice cream maker you always wanted but never use. The domain of those who dress up their dogs in jewels and put little booties on them. Right? Why would we want a warm seat? Why would we want a jet of water that oscillates and pulsates to provide a sense of clean unmatched by our go to toilet paper? Why would we want to complicate what was a simple and utilitarian process by adding a high tech remote control?

Because its freakin awesome! (If we had flashing lights to put around this declaration, we would) Toto is bringing the sexy back to the restroom and better yet, making it relatively affordable for all of us to access a spa-like bathroom experience.

The Washlet line allows you to convert your old restroom clunker into the high performance loo luxury your backside deserves. Installation is relatively simple for you DIY’ers out there, although, always best done by a professional.

Some key features that our family found particularly useful:

Automatically raising toilet seat: Hands-free seems to be all the rage. Hands-free phones. Motion sensing doors and lights. Now, we have toilets whose lids lift when we enter the room. For the germophobes out there (you know who you are, always using hand sanitizer…), you can now have a bathroom experience sans your hands getting anywhere near your byproducts. The seat automatically opens when you enter and closes when you have finished your business. For those of us who aren’t germ focused, we still benefit. As anyone knows who lives with the opposite sex the washlet totally diffuses the “he left the seat up and I almost fell into the toilet” discussion that invariably happens. Thing of the Washlet as reducing a pet peeve that could lead to unnecessary time in couples therapy.

Night Light: C’mon. It happens to all of us. We stumble to the toilet in the middle of the night only to find out the next morning that when we thought we were peeing in the toilet, it was really the garbage can. Wait, that didn’t happen to you? Don’t be in denial. Whether you are a sleep reliever or not, it is very helpful to have the night light to help guide you and keep your bathroom from the potential disaster that could be from relieving yourself in the dark, not to be confused with dancing in the dark.

Cleansing: So in all honesty, this is the feature, where we realized we didn’t even know what we were missing. Dear Toto, mind blown! Love, Flushd. The cleansing feature is remote control driven. While I wouldn’t classify it as a video game for your butt, its pretty darn close and with a lot more upside. This feature has made toilet paper and wipes a thing of the past in our house. We are saving trees, our pipes from being clogged and experiencing a sense of clean that well, quite frankly, we didn’t even know was possible. It is absolutely the closest thing to a spa treatment for your tush, and you get to experience it every day!

Dryer: The only thing that could make a hands-free cleansing feature any better is to follow-that with a nice warm flow of air to gently dry your nether regions.

Self-Cleaning: Not only does this toilet clean you, but it cleans itself. Say What? Yes, it cleans itself. It features "ewater+" which shoots electrolyzed water into the toilet as a cleaning compound. Time to get rid of that toilet brush. It's obsolete tech.

Retailing for around $1,000 when we did our online check, you could have a luxe potty experience for just a few sheckels a day. Well worth it in our book. If you don’t do it for yourself, do it so your friends talk about how cool your toilet is. Whenever our friends come over the first words out of our kids mouths are, “have you see how cool our electric toilet is?”